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Maira Kalman's New Picture Book Takes the Fast Track
Elizabeth Devereaux -- 7/6/98
The half million people who on any given day pass through New York City's Grand Central Terminal might be forgiven for thinking they have wandered into the pages of a picture book -- since last Christmas, the stately train station has been filled with eight-foot-high murals by picture book author/artist Maira Kalman. Under the arches, along the concourses, blithely eccentric figures bob and twist; they cover the ubiquitous construction barricades erected during the station's extensive renovation. And, for the geographically challenged as well as for local enthusiasts, a book featuring those murals will be out in early 1999.

Off the page: Kalman stands before one of her murals
A New Yorker since childhood best known for her books about the haute urban p t-dog Max, Kalman seems an inspired choice to man Grand Central's barricades. Last year, a team of companies and "layers and layers of committees" under the supervision of the Metropolitan Transit Authority invited her to participate in a competition for the project along with two other artists.
Kalman loved the concept, but wasn't interested in competing. She was offered the commission anyway. "I always felt that project had my name on it," she says.

Assigned six themes (e.g., dining, the main concourse, special events), Kalman began work last September, and spent "many hours, days, weeks" surveying the nooks, the crannies, the employees and, of course, the people who rush through Grand Central. Her six paintings were blown up to a Brobdingnagian 8'x 20' copied many times over, and cut and pasted and installed (by a company hired by the MTA) and "unveiled" at Christmastime.

"It was the most fun project on the planet!" says Kalman. A month or two later, in February, she was almost mournfully telling her agent Charlotte Sheedy how ideal the work had been, when Sheedy said dryly, "Surely there's something else you can do with those murals." A call was put in to Nancy Paulsen at Putnam, which had a long-standing contract with Kalman, and a book was born.

Next Stop, Grand Central, scheduled for early 1999, g s behind the scenes, introducing, for example, the lost-and-found man (who has been handed everything from a briefcase loaded with uncut jewels to a single button). Paulsen pointed out that about a quarter of the pictures are new, added to improve the narrative flow. Even so, it took Kalman only about two months to deliver the book, in April, in time for copies of the finished book to be air-freighted from Hong Kong for events celebrating the completion of the Grand Central renovation in October. Given the number of requests for posters that officials have already received, it's a safe bet that when that book pulls out of the station, plenty of readers will climb aboard.
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